Tuesday, May 19, 2009

I've been working on a few projects recently. But I seem to keep having the same problem - I get to between ten and 15 thousand words, and I get bored. I feel listless; the characters no longer charm me, and I have no idea why. When I wrote my debut novel, Stranded, out this month, I had the fuel to keep going, even through the editing and rewrites. I'm not sure how to find my "mojo" again, as it were.

I spoke to Annie, a fellow writer today, and I'm going to share her tips for overcoming these false starts, or a spot of writer's block:

1. Conflict isn't enough. If that's all you have, you'll be bored when it's resolved.2. Make friends with your characters. Know them inside out. Know what they'd do in certain situations.3. Hang out with your character. Be in his world, but outside of the story. For example, ask him what he wants to do. Let him do it. Eventually, he'll come around and be ready to work with you again.4. Let your characters off the hook sometimes. If you keep pushing them to move forward in the story, you're only pushing yourself.

I think she has some great ideas, and I hope they helped anyone out there reading this.

I guess I'll go chill out with my characters for a bit. Would someone please order a pizza?

2 comments:

Do your characters like pizza? :) Nice article!After blazing like gangbusters through my first two books and thinking that "duh" moment would never come, I finally found it. Thanks for sharing your tips.

Thanks Jasmine for sharing your thoughts on writing. I know how you feel.I would say find what inspires you or work on something else that is caught your eye for the moment. That happened to me and now I want to stick my hands into everything.